The use of disposable metal foil pans for cooking various food products such as turkeys, roasts, hams and the like has become popular in recent years. The advantages of such a pan are (a) it is inexpensive; (b) eliminates the need for cleaning the pan after use; and (c) is of simple, lightweight and sturdy construction. Notwithstanding these advantages, such pans are also beset with disadvantages as well. For example, when the product accommodated by the pan is bulky and heavy, manual handling of a loaded pan requires care, otherwise the pan will buckle and distort causing the product to become unstable and fall out of the pan, or the juices exuded from the product to spill out of the pan. Also, it is awkward and sometimes hazardous to lift the pan by grasping the rim thereof when placing the loaded pan into or removing same from an oven.
Various handles or handle assemblies have heretofore been proposed to facilitate manual handling of such pans. Such prior handles or handle assemblies, however, have one or more of the following undesirable inherent design characteristics: (i) they are of costly and complex construction; (ii) they are bulky and thus, when permanently affixed to the pan, substantially increased the overall peripheral dimension the pan thereby restricting the use thereof to ovens having large cooking chambers and (iii) affixing the handle or handle assembly to the pan is an awkward and time consuming manufacturing operation.
Examples of various prior handles or handle assemblies are disclosed in Anders Pat. No. 4,717,038 and Sarnoff et al. Pat. Nos. 4,817,812 and 4,852,760. In the Anders structure, an inordinate number of components are required which in turn, complicate the procedure for attaching the handle assembly to the pan rim. In the Sarnoff et al. Pat. No. 4,817,812, the handle assembly is not attached to the pan and thus, the loaded pan may inadvertently or accidentally become disassembled from the handle assembly during handling. Furthermore, the frame assembly does not extend upwardly the full height of the pan side wall and thus, in certain instances would not provide stable support for the loaded pan particularly when the pan is being manually transported. The Sarnoff et al. Pat. No. 4,852,760 discloses a handle assembly wherein a frame section thereof has the opposite upper ends thereof preformed into a complex shape requiring a costly wire bending fixture used in manufacturing the frame assembly. Furthermore, because of the preformed configuration of the upper ends, care must be exercised by production personnel in manually targeting and inserting opposed rim segments of the pan into the open sides of the preformed end portions. Once the rim segments are in place the upper end portions are crimped to the rim. Such targeting manipulation is fatiguing and requires personnel which is alert and disciplined.